


The Best Thing

by celestialskiff



Series: Little Little [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ageplay, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Mary is awesome, Multi, Non-Sexual Age Play, POV John Watson, Post Reichenbach, Power Play, Sub John, Top Mary, self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:12:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Reichenbach, John finds himself regressing to deal with his grief. But it isn't helping very much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to YumiSayama, who inspired this by asking how Mary found out about John and Sherlock being little.

After.

John went into Sherlock's room on the second day. It was dusty as always: Sherlock's fingerprints were undisturbed on his bedside table. There was a towel on the floor, and the pillow still held the imprint of Sherlock's head. 

John wrapped his arms around himself and rocked on his heels. He'd been doing that a lot lately: he'd lost whatever part of himself made him ashamed to do it in public. 

There was Lego on Sherlock's sideboard, and in Sherlock's drawers, John knew he would find all sorts of incriminating things: plastic toys, puzzles, nappies. He didn't open them. His pounding heart filled his head. Sherlock's special blanket was lying in a soft lump beside Sherlock's pillow. John grabbed it, pressed it to his face. Then he ran from the room. 

*

He couldn't sleep in 221B. He couldn't breathe there. He shared with Harry, and then Mike, and they asked awkward questions, and it was worse than he had ever imagined. 

He dreamed of having a bath with Sherlock. Splashing each other. Bubbles in his hair. Decadent laughter. He woke with his hand pressed to his mouth so he wouldn't cry out. 

When he got a new place, he kept Sherlock's blanket in a drawer next to his bed. He touched it delicately, as though he might break it if he handled it too often. It didn't smell like Sherlock, but it did smell like home: dusty sheets, chemicals, cigarette smoke, toast. 

Sometimes when he held it, he could forget Sherlock was gone. They'd shared a bed, two warm shapes in the dark, and now Sherlock was just down the hall, building something out of Lego. Making an eyeball explode. Coming up with another game. Or Sherlock was his grown-up self, tough and wild and exasperating, and about to get him out of bed. 

Forgetting was blissful and terrible. The loneliness was worse afterwards. The pain coiled inside him and the grief was so violent it was physical, a twisting knife in the guts. 

*

He didn't bring all his things from 221B. Mrs Hudson touched his hand and his arm, and said, “Come back. Come back any time you want to talk. Or you just want dinner. Don't leave me on my own.” 

He left shirts and blankets and all the notes he'd kept on cases with Sherlock. He brought the box he'd found his bear, Barry, in, after he'd come back. He'd never bothered to unpack it properly. He looked through it now. It was half-full of things from his teenage years: biology textbooks, lab books, pulp novels. Underneath were items from his own childhood: a screen-print of a jungle, in greens and golds, with birds and panthers hidden in the shadows, three medieval knights with armour and one horse, also with armour, a yo-yo and a soft toy shark from the London aquarium. 

Hide them, part of him said. You don't need them. 

He put the jungle print above his bed. There'd been a picture of roses there that came with the flat, and the jungle was much better. He put the knights next to his bed, the shark on his pillow. He sucked his thumb and rocked himself. 

It was almost worse, like this, when he let himself slip. He almost missed Sherlock more. But there was security here, a sense of being soothed, and he couldn't deny himself that. 

*

“Indulging in any risky behaviour?” Ella asked. She had her pad in front of her, but she wasn't taking notes. There was just his name and a blue biro line. 

John chewed his thumbnail, which didn't satisfy the urge to suck his thumb at all, but was better than doing nothing. “Risky behaviour?” he said. 

“Get into fights, drive over the speed limit, have unprotected sex?” 

John shook his head. He nearly laughed. All I do, he thought, all I can do, is suck my thumb and hold my shark and watch kid's telly and hope something, something, will make me feel like he's there. 

“All right, John. Perhaps we should work on positive coping strategies. Do you use any techniques to self-soothe? Where is your safe place?”

A few months ago he wouldn't have known what she meant. Now he had an image of Sherlock, curled up next to him on the sofa, thumb in his mouth, all his limbs loose. Or he pictured Sherlock chasing him down the corridor waving a wooden spoon above his head like a sword. He heard distant laughter. They had known how to soothe themselves. 

John shook his head. He buried his face in his hands. She couldn't help him. 

*

Sometimes he wanted to slip deeper. 

He tried to be adult and responsible, but the battle was constant and exhausting. He took part time work in a GP, three days a week. Three days of nodding and learning to smile and using his guilt to goad himself into hearing what patients said. 

But afterwards it was so hard to hold on to reality. He wanted Sherlock to say, “Let's play a game.” He wanted Sherlock to say, “We have a case.” He wanted. 

He tried to keep up with friends, but the only things he liked these days were things he could only share with Sherlock. Some nights he tried to put his little self away. He stuffed the shark into a box, put a fuzzy blanket into the airing-cupboard, but he woke in the middle of the night to get them back, shivering and sick with himself. 

Sherlock would have told him not to be ashamed. 

Sometimes Sherlock had even worn nappies, more and more as time went on and he got anxious or upset. It had made John feel weird, seeing the soft lump under Sherlock's pyjama bottoms, but he was curious too. Sherlock was extra little when he wore them, gentle and demanding physical affection. John liked it when Sherlock demanded, because he never knew how to offer. 

Later John had tried them himself several times. He'd been curious, and Sherlock had known he was curious even before John himself knew. They'd been a warm weight at his hips and crotch, comforting and strange at the same time. He imagined it now, getting dressed in them, accepting the only comfort he could find. He even went to Boots to looked on the shelves at the stacks of incontinence products, but it made him feel filthy and wrong. He didn't have Sherlock's fearlessness: he only had shame. 

*

He dreamt about pirates. He woke looking for Sherlock's warm shape, and hit the bare bed with his fists, and hated him. He took to sleeping on the sofa, half upright, so he'd feel different. So he wouldn't forget that he was alone. 

He watched kid's telly in the mornings— _Charlie and Lola, Pocoyo_ —and it made him calm enough to go to work. There was no one he could to talk. He'd lied and lied to Ella. 

One lunch break, he saw a bear a bit like Barry in a shop window. He almost bought it, but he remembered the bear lying between his and Sherlock's bodies, and then he remembered Sherlock's face when he realised he'd lost something precious to John, and he couldn't stand it, not even that. 

He sat at his desk in work and held his head in his hands, and rocked. 

*

He was afraid when he met Mary. He was afraid of the way she could make him smile. He hadn't let another person make him smile in so long. He could plaster a friendly expression on his face when he was working, trying to soothe his patients, but it was only acting. With Mary, it was real. 

He put his hand up his lips afterwards, and his mouth tasted sour and strange. 

“Come out with me,” Mary said, one day, after his evening surgery. 

John looked up at her, uncertain, not sure what the right word was. 

“Don't look so frightened. Come for a drink. I won't bite you. What do you do all evening? Work on your model aeroplanes?” 

“I prefer medieval knights,” John said, without thinking. 

“Really?” 

“Sometimes.” He looked down at his notes, hands splayed over the paper. He could feel a tremor in his thumb, even if he couldn't see it.

*

Two nights later, he ended up at her house. “You're not much good at this, are you?” she'd said to him in the pub, that first night. He'd been to the pub a few times, with Lestrade or Mike Stamford, but it had been so hard to hear what they were saying over the buzzing in his ears. Sherlock only went to pubs on sufferance. 

He'd sat next to her, holding a pint in both hands, wondering how this place had come to feel like an alien world. “I haven't got out much lately.” 

Mary had a small house of her own, miles out, but much nicer than his own scruffy flat. He sat anxiously on her sofa, uncertain of why he was here. _Because you're lonely. Because Sherlock is an inconsiderate dick and you can't spend your whole life missing him._

“Drink?” Mary said. “Or is milk and biscuits more you style?” 

John's stomach clenched, knowing it was a joke. “Beer?” he said. 

“Wine,” she said, and poured out two glasses of white, and sat next to him, thigh to thigh, calf to calf. It had been so long since he felt the heat of another person like that: tender and deliberate, not squashing close to a stranger in a crowded room. 

He didn't intend to have sex with her, either. When had he last had sex? So long ago. Some time long before Sherlock had left, before he'd got lost in their games. An occasional, furious wank in the shower had been enough. He hadn't thought to want it. 

“Is this going to make work awkward for you?” Mary asked, before she kissed him. His mouth was slack for a moment, and her lips tickled the space beside his jaw. 

Then there was a surge inside him, a hot ache, and he remembered. He remembered how it was to have another person near him, to feel the warmth of them, their hands tracing organic patterns on his back. 

“We'll sort it out,” John said, and kissed her, her neck, her cheek, her mouth. Each touch was almost overwhelming: he felt as though he was sinking into her. It was so much more than he'd expected, like suddenly eating a plateful of whipped cream after a year of gruel. 

Each kiss felt like it might be too much. But he kept kissing, and she laughed into his mouth and played with his hair, and said, “God, you're eager,” and he said, “You're beautiful,” and she laughed again, and steered him to the bed. 

He was trembling, he let her guide him, he couldn't remember what to do with his hands. She brought his mouth to her vulva, and he sank his face down eagerly. He remember that wet heat as though from another life, but he knew how to lick, how to suck, and, later, when he sank into her, it was like dying, and waking up. 

*

He woke next to a warm body, and curled against it. The body was smaller than his, and he had a sudden, almost physical recollection, of being held by a larger body, pulled close, contained by firm limbs. 

Sherlock. Mary. 

He felt small, he felt like his skin had been stripped right off. He was exposed and alone despite her warm presence. He gathered his clothes and walked naked to the bathroom. He was trembling again, his jaw quivering. 

“Get a fucking grip,” he said to his reflection in the mirror, but the reflection was a hollow-eyed quivering man and he didn't recognise it. 

He put his t-shirt on, and his boxers, and washed his face in cold water. He wanted to curl into the space beneath the sink, to make himself as small as possible and suck his thumb, and rock. 

He couldn't leave Mary. But he couldn't be anything but this hollow pretence of a person. 

He got back into bed. He was still trembling. His shoulder throbbed, and his hip. He wasn't real. He was aching and hollow, and a tear dripped down his nose. 

He stuffed his thumb into his mouth to disguise any sounds. He held his muscles stiff to stop the shaking. He sucked slowly, softly. It helped. It didn't help much, but it helped. 

He felt the bed stir beside him. He was afraid to move. _I'm asleep, I'm asleep_ , he thought. 

Her hand was on his arm, cool and solid. He was frozen next to her, unsure whether to snatch the thumb away or whether that would be more incriminating. She touched his cheek. 

“You awake?”

He nodded, blush rising, tears not far away. Oh God. He was a mockery of himself. 

She stroked his shoulder, his arm. He felt her warmth next to him, settling against his back. “Is it OK, me giving you a hug?” 

He nodded. 

She slid close, holding him. For a moment, he felt contained by her. She kissed the back of his neck. “You're a bit broken, aren't you?” she said. 

*

He'd thought she might not want him after that desperate, broken night, but she invited him over at the weekend. 

She said she was making lemon chicken tagine and rice, and he said, “You can do a lot of things.” The house smelt sweet and bitter. 

She laughed. “You don't cook, then?”

He shook his head. He mostly ate nuts and crisps and chocolate these days. Apples sometimes, when he felt guilty. Calorie-dense food, and he hadn't lost much weight. 

“I'd tease you, but you've had a tough time. You've got terrible bags under your eyes.” She traced cool fingers over his forehead. 

He shrugged. “I've stopped looking in mirrors.” 

“Poor boy. What do you need?” 

He didn't know how to answer that. “I don't need anything.” 

“Do you want to do what I tell you?” 

He'd never expected to be asked that question. He'd never suspected the answer would be so eager under his tongue. “Yes. God yes.” 

Mary led him upstairs and got him to kneel, and he pressed his face to her cunt, listening to her whispered commands, and felt whole and strong and solid as she told him how to move, where to put his hands, what she needed. 

Afterwards she sat on the bed and he leant on the floor next to her with his legs at an awkward angle and his head in her lap. “You'll have to tell me what you want, sweetheart,” she said. “I don't know.”

“I didn't know I wanted this.” 

She took his hand, his right hand, and gently raised it, so his thumb was lying next to his lips. He let it slip into his mouth. His lips tasted like her vulva and his thumb was safe in his mouth. Her fingers ran through his hair. He shut his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to feel safe. 

“Good boy,” she said gently. “You're doing well.”

He nuzzled at her thigh with his cheek. No one had ever called him that before. He had never known someone could call him that and he would only feel glad, not annoyed or ashamed. 

“Mary,” he said softly, letting the thumb slip free, “I should probably tell you more about my friend Sherlock.” 

“I think you should,” she said. 

* 

He liked doing what she told him. He'd liked doing what Sherlock told him, too, but it was different with Mary. She thought before she asked, and she never asked him to do anything that made him feel horrible, or was illegal. 

He felt safe when he did what she said. He felt safe in her arms, letting her make the decisions. 

And sometimes she would put her hands to his throat, and he would close his eyes and trust her, trust her, and he began to feel alive again. 

*

He lay in a small lump next to her. She had her tablet on her knee. She'd bound his hands earlier, but they were untied now. He wrapped his wrists together, fingers over his pulse points, remembering being contained by the rope. 

“Aren't you bored?” she said, but he wasn't, he was happy just to lie next to her. Like a loyal dog, he thought. She petted his forehead and smiled, as though she had heard the thought. 

“I've been reading about littles on FetLife,” she said, fingers moving over the screen. “There are a lot of things we don't do.” 

John shrugged. “I don't want to do anything else.”

“Are you sure? Sweetheart, you don't even have a teddy-bear.” 

John shook his head. He couldn't even think about that. 

She sighed. “You won't shock me, you know. I just read a thread called 'stinky, squishy and proud'.” 

“Nothing like that,” John said. Then added, “I don't even know what that means.” 

Mary laughed. “I'm not saying I'll like everything you like, but we'll can work something out, if you talk to me.” 

She was looking down at him so kindly. He wanted to bury his face in her thigh, to never, never leave. 

He thought: _unhealthy. Dependent._ But it was so soon after Sherlock, and she was so loving, and he had become so bad at self-denial. 

Mary, he thought, was better than him. She would never let him take too much from her. 

“I'm fine,” John said. “Maybe... maybe one day. It's too soon.” 

“OK,” Mary said. She opened a chat window, and typed something. 

Thinking she wasn't listening, John said, “You're the best thing that could have happened to me.” 

She smiled. “I know.”


End file.
